Letters to the Editor

Your article, "Court Ruling Heats Tax-Credit Debate" (Education
Week, July 27, 1983), noted that some people have criticized the
Supreme Court's decision upholding Minnesota's tuition-deduction law on
the grounds that it promotes religion in violation of the First
Amendment.

This view, though widely held, is not based in history. As Robert
Cord has demonstrated in his masterful Separation of Church and State:
Historical Fact and Current Fiction, not all government support for
religion is unconstitutional. In fact, when the First Amendment was
written, five states had established religions. James Madison's
proposal to ban these state religions was soundly defeated.

The First Amendment was meant--among other things--to prevent the
establishment of a national religion imposed on all the states. The
states, however, were free to establish their own religions.

As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in E. Corwin's
Constitutional History:

"Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of
the amendments to it, ... the general, if not the universal, sentiment
in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from
the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of
conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level
all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in
utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation, if not
universal indignation."

George Washington echoed this early sentiment when he wrote, "True
religion affords government its surest support." So did the writers of
the Northwest Ordinance who wrote, just four years before the
Constitution, that religion and morality are "necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind."

Many proponents of "separation of church and state" claim the First
Amendment as their proof-text, but this term cannot be found in either
the Constitution or the First Amendment. It was Thomas Jefferson who
coined the term in Paris while the First Amendment was being written
3,000 miles away on America's eastern seaboard.

The 20th-century Supreme Court has taught and enforced the principle
that government may not support religion. But those Justices have done
so on the basis of something other than our 18th-century
Constitution.

Gerald R. McDermott Principal Park Christian School Moorhead, Minn.

Tucson Program Links

Universities, Schools

To the Editor:

Your recent article, "University, School Links Urged" (Education
Week, Aug. 24, 1983), described links between universities and public
schools. In the Tucson Unified School District, we have been active in
developing just the kinds of links called for in the Pajaro Dunes,
Calif., meeting.

Henry Koffler, president of the University of Arizona, has been
eager to become involved with public schools and to cooperate with
elementary and secondary educators in programs that benefit both
institutions. Other state universities have demonstrated their
commitment as well.

As a result, we have launched some exciting joint ventures. The
first program was the University of Arizona's "adoption" of Pueblo High
School, the district school with the highest minority population. That
action has provided Pueblo's students and staff members with the
expertise of education professors and subject-area specialists. Other
important benefits include inservice training for staff members and
meeting the special needs of minority youths.

The Pueblo program grew into a district-wide "Adopt-a-School"
program. The business community has volunteered to work with students
in all of our high schools after witnessing the University's success at
Pueblo.

Another new program in conjunction with the University of Arizona
encourages and supports minority students to enter the fields of
mathematics, science, and engineering, in which minorities are
traditionally underrepresented. Another program is "Career Decisions,"
which identifies high-school youths who have interest and potential in
the educational disciplines; specifically, we hope to find and support
talented young people who might otherwise not have considered teaching
as a career.

It was a bit disappointing to note in your article that no mention
was made of involving public-school administrators in the Pajaro Dunes
deliberations. I would be delighted to participate in any coalition
that includes large, urban school districts, or to contribute to any
planning involving public schools, and I'm certain my colleagues would
be, too.

Your Aug. 17, 1983, issue contained three articles on the subject of
children and parenting. "Students Have Lost Their 'Thirst for
Knowledge,' Study Indicates" concluded that the home environment is one
of the most important factors involved in the current change in
students' attitudes. "Low Scores Linked to Mothers' Working" told of
how children were adversely affected by maternal employment. And "The
Loss of Childhood in the New Middle Ages," the Commentary by Marie
Winn, discussed how today's children are moving into the adult world
sooner than before.

Ms. Winn writes: "We will never return to the old-style family with
the bread-earning father and the childlike, stay-at-home mother minding
the house and kids."

We will never find out how much we are missing by such attitudes as
this sentence fosters. How many mothers work full-time because their
role at home was seen as "childlike" and ineffective? Is it less
childlike to pound a keyboard all day, or to make change at the corner
drugstore? What insanity we have perpetrated on an entire generation of
American women!

The house and kids were never that dreamy, never-never land that Ms.
Winn seems to think they were, or are. Ask any mother who stays at
home. Raising children is the most frustrating, rewarding, screaming,
laughing work in the world. And it just might be the most
important.

Whichever study is correct--the one that concludes mothers' working
is detrimental to education, or the one that concludes it is not--we
are doing society no favors to continue the eternal put-down of
full-time motherhood.

Jaymee Seidel

Grand Forks, N.D.

Supreme Court Justices

Are Seeking To Justify

Their Personal Politics

To the Editor:

Your excerpts from Justice Rehnquist and Justice Marshall's opinions
in the Minnesota tuition tax-deduction case (Education Week, Aug. 17,
1983), illustrate that our Supreme Court justices are ideologues
seeking to justify their own political preferences rather than
carefully and objectively interpreting the Constitution they have sworn
to uphold.

Justice Rehnquist defended tuition tax deductions by writing, "An
educated populace is essential to the political and economic health of
any community, and a state's efforts to assist parents in meeting the
rising cost of educational expenses plainly serves this secular purpose
of ensuring that the state's citizenry is well-educated."

Besides the question of whether the end justifies the means, Mr.
Rehnquist ignores the simple fact that no branch of the U.S. government
has any constitutionally authorized jurisdiction over the educational
process. In short, education in Minnesota is none of Mr. Rehnquist's
business.

Mr. Marshall recites the tired refrain that there exists a
"fundamental principle that a state may provide no financial support
whatsoever to promote religion." According to the First Amendment, the
federal government is explicitly barred from rendering such financial
support. There is nothing in that amendment, however, that would
prohibit a state from providing such aid.

As we all now know, the wall of separation between church and state
is a Jeffersonian ideal, articulated by our third president as one of
his personally held tenets--and one that I regard as wise and prudent.
It it not, however, a constitutional provision, and Justice Marshall
has no constitutional authority to construe such a principal.

Mark Hendrickson

New Wilmington, Pa.

Tuition Tax Credits Could

Rescue Catholic Schools

To the Editor:

Patricia Lines concludes her Commentary--"The Impact of Mueller: New
Options for Policymakers," (Education Week, Aug. 24, 1983)--with the
hope that our policymakers will look beyond the rich when they draft
legislation.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on Mueller, continued
pressure for tuition tax relief will undoubtedly arise. But I suspect
this pressure will come not from the rich, but from the leaders of
Catholic schools, which constitute 64 percent of the private-school
sector.

If Catholic schools are experiencing rising costs, anticipating
raised tuitions, and serving primarily middle and low economic groups,
as reported in the same issue in "Pressure To Increase Tuition Could
Threaten Future of Catholic Schools," then the opportunity for tax
relief to help offset tuition increases will appeal to leaders and
parents of students in these schools.

Evidence of successful pressure from such groups for state support
to underwrite some educational costs in private schools exists in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, as Ms. Lines notes. To see
what direction policymakers are likely to take, one ought to monitor
the activity of state and federal policymakers in those four states,
and in other areas of the country where there is a concentration of
Catholic schools.

My hunch is that the policymakers will go for a tax deduction
subtracted from gross income rather than seek help through itemized
deductions, because it has greater impact for middle and low economic
groups.

Tuition tax relief is not a high priority for the rich, as Ms. Lines
implies. It is likely to be a high priority for the constituents of
Catholic schools. Yes, the rich might benefit from such legislation,
but the dollar numbers currently being considered are insignificant to
them. These dollars, however, may make the difference to the survival
of Catholic schools.

James S. Catterall University of California at Los Angeles Los Angeles,
Calif.

Web Only

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.